


this lego castle is missing a manual

by sbrn10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbrn10/pseuds/sbrn10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody else gets to forget, but Regina remembers all 28 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this lego castle is missing a manual

When the smoke clears, Regina is standing alone in a forest. She doesn't feel very different than before, but she takes a deep breath—there is no magic in the air—and smiles anyway.

*

At the edge of the forest is a black road, and several miles down a shabby old diner that passes as a rest area. Regina pretends to sip the brown water they give her and listens greedily to the people around her, clutching the newspaper as she hoards knowledge.

It is 1984, and in this world, they say that like it means some horrible ending. Regina decides she likes it.

*

She builds a house, and then a street, and then a town. She names her puppets and gives them roles to play—the roles are funny in her mind, when she tells the dwarves that they have always hated the mountains, or the woodcutter that he has no children. They might not see the humor if they knew, but her subjects never question anything too much or remember anything too long.

She had planned for the prince to marry his original betrothed, but his state provides an unexpected opportunity. "You were married, don't you remember?" she tells Mary Margaret, gesturing towards David's broken body. Mary Margaret doesn't, but her sobs are real, and that is funny too.

*

The man and woman who own the diner are married, and there is a little girl who sits behind the counter, strapped to a chair. Sometimes the girl cries, and the mother lifts her up, crooning softly. Sometimes, the diner is too busy, and the mother snaps at the girl in vain before taking her behind the closed door of the kitchen.

One day, Regina walks into the diner and it is empty, silent save for the television on the counter. The woman rises, turning the volume down, and the girl whines in displeasure.

"No, it's okay," Regina says, seating herself as far away from the counter as possible.

"You sure?" the woman asks back, neutral but obviously relieved. Regina nods, and watches the girl smile at the screen again.

"Kids, you know," the woman says later as she places a mug in front of Regina. "Can't live without their cartoons and storybooks." She smiles at Regina as if to seek confirmation.

Regina nods but says nothing.

*

Unfortunately, this world is not perfect.

No matter what she tells them, Marco starts tinkering with things; Mary Margaret buys birdfeed and coos at robins; Moe is obsessed with roses. They are stuck in time; she cannot change them.

"For all your puffery, you know, this curse was rather poorly thought out. Shouldn't there have been a backdoor in case something needed to be fixed?" she complains to Gold in his shop, her fingers itching, impotent where she hides them in her coat pocket. Gold looks at her curiously while counting out her change. He would not remember if she said more, but she refrains from it anyway.

She puts televisions in their homes, and people play the right roles for slightly longer than before.

The next time Gold sees her in the street, he nods in greeting and smiles.

*

Years pass, and the tower clock never moves.

*

Eventually, she grows tired of simply waiting.

The doorbell rings, and for a small moment, Regina is surprised—before she remembers. She opens the door, and Graham is there like she asked, smirking boyishly with thumbs tucked into his belt.

"Madam Mayor?"

He is nothing like Daniel, but he is good enough for now, so she smirks too and holds the door open wider.

*

"It's spring already. Seems like only yesterday it was snowing, doesn't it?" Mary Margaret's brow creases in a struggle to remember, but then she shakes her head and carefully places her bouquet in the vase by the window. "I know you love flowers. When you wake up, we can visit the forest and get more."

Regina's hand shakes on the door knob.

*

"But David's my husband," Mary Margaret says, with the sort of conviction and loyalty that has no business making a home in her voice, like a cobra coiled at the bottom of a basket.

"Miss Blanchard, you're confused. We've talked about this. This man has no name. You don't even know who he is," Regina barks.

Mary Margaret flinches away and frowns, uncertainty creeping into the corners of her mouth.

"Maybe you should consider a change of vocation, Miss Blanchard. Working at the hospital isn't good for you." Regina pauses, lips pursed as she considers. "Perhaps you should talk to Dr. Hopper."

She had not planned for the cricket to be a doctor, but he keeps trying to act like one. She might as well let him, until Mary Margaret forgets again.

*

Nothing is perfect.

Regina gives up on nudging all the townspeople periodically, and they fall into something like old habit. The nuns give out free meals; Leroy drinks and smashes things at the hospital sometimes; Albert Spencer bullies people around even when there is little crime to speak of. But Graham comes at Regina's beck and call; Michael Tillman still does not remember his children; and Mary Margaret does not bring David flowers. It is good enough, Regina thinks, as she lets Graham in and kisses his cheek casually.

A week later, Graham looks up, surprised. "Madam Mayor?" he asks.

Regina never visits the Sheriff's office uninvited after that.

*

While cleaning her room, her fingers brush against the embossed lettering of a book title, and she lingers.

The diner has received a new coat of paint, but the insides are the same, and the faces behind the counter are only older.

"Hello, ma'am," the woman says, eyes crinkling with her smile. Regina searches, but there is no familiarity, no remembrance. "What can I get you today?"

She orders coffee and takes the slightly crumpled newspaper off the counter. It is 2000, and they say that like it is a new beginning. Regina grimaces and puts the paper down.

*

Seasons pass. Haircuts and clothes go in and out of style. There are yard signs proclaiming _Al Gore for President_ now.

But, Regina realizes, nothing really changes at all.

"You lied, didn't you, you son of a bastard," she asks the ceiling one night. Graham snores next to her, and of course, he has no answer.

*

She raises taxes on real estate. A month later, nobody recalls a time when it was different.

*

Ruby has her annual—or biannual or whatever; nobody is keeping track—"leaving for Boston" fit and Granny has another heart attack. Regina sends a card from the mayor's office, _City Hall_ stamped on the envelope.

She thinks about leaving Storybrooke. She is not bound like the others; she could, if she wanted. And who is to say she might not find what she is looking for, further down the road, beyond the diner? After all, Rumplestiltskin was never very forthcoming with details.

She wonders then, briefly, what Storybrooke would be like without her. 

It is not that she is worried the happy endings would return. She just thinks she would miss seeing the sad endings she has grown used to. Even if they are always the same.

*

Despite his limp, Gold does not walk so much as strut. They discuss the easy lies—rent rates, the local economy, the next election—until he stops to point at children in the park, stamping his cane against the ground as if that counts as a jovial gesture. "Little ones are such a blessing, aren't they?" He eyes Regina, then smiles knowingly. "Never had one myself, but I just bet you'd make a fine mother, Mayor Mills."

Regina whips her head around and stares. Gold is not _him_ ; he does not—cannot—know. But her heart still pounds at even the mention of _mother_ , and she clutches her necklace while he turns and shuffles away.

*

The bug waves hello while walking his dog, and Graham smiles politely on his patrol.

But really, she thinks later, she is so tired of waiting.

*

Gold comes with a woman from out of town, who asks Regina to sign on the dotted line too many times. Every time, she thinks wildly of tearing up the papers— _who is she kidding here?_ —but she just dots her i's instead.

After everything, Henry blinks up at Regina drowsily, and Regina's throat closes up, suffocating. She does not know how to do this.

*

Regina reads books that purport to have answers, but none of them are very useful when Henry cries. It is not his diaper, or his bottle, or his pacifier, or Regina's pleading and prodding. There is no trick. He just cries, and she is helpless. 

They fall asleep together, him in his crib, her sitting next to it, only when they are too exhausted to do anything else.

*

Light crashes through large windows, bruising Regina into wakefulness, despite her stiff legs and the obscene numbers flashing on the table clock. But Henry is still sleeping, thank god. Regina rises with a wince, shoulder popping loudly. She tugs the curtain, hissing and skidding across its rod, until the room is less punishingly bright.

It does not work as she hoped; she pads back to Henry's crib, holding her breath, and now his eyes are open, wandering the room until he sees her. The air in her lungs feels stale, decaying, as she waits for the screwed-up face, the wailing and gnashing.

Then Henry laughs, a curious echo in the room, and reaches with both hands as if to swat at her face. Like a car in Michael's shop, Regina's heart shifts and sputters, turning over clumsily. She lifts him up carefully until they are face to face, and the recognition in his smiling gray eyes is terrible.

That must be why, when she sighs a trembling kiss against his cheek, his skin comes back gleaming with tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Some fast and loose with canon if you squint, I guess, although I maintain that it makes more sense for Regina to have been able to leave Storybrooke.
> 
> Thanks to [sexonastick](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sexonastick/pseuds/sexonastick) for beta and putting up with me.


End file.
